Finding Aids

Anna J. Schwartz (1915-2012) was an American economist who worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York City. The collection consists of a microfilm copy of an unpublished paper by Schwartz collecting banking statistics for the states of Pennsylvania (1829-1863) and New York (1831-1863), along with an extended essay describing their derivation.

Incorporated in 1830, Beaver Meadow Railroad & Coal Company transported anthracite coal mined in Beaver Meadow to Philadelphia markets. The company merged into the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1864. Their records consist of stock transfer books in two volumes, dated 1833 to 1846 and 1861 to 1863, which list transactions of the company shares and changes in ownership.

The Erie City Iron Works was founded by Pennsylvania capitalist Bethuel Boyd Vincent (1803-1876) as the Presque Isle Foundry in 1840. The Works was a major manufacturer of boilers, stationary and portable engines and machinery for sawmills and steam riveting as well as railroad freight and passenger cars. Their records are largely comprised of accounting records.

Lehigh Coal Mine Company was an unincorporated joint-stock company, established in 1792, with the intention of developing a deposit of anthracite coal discovered by Jacob Weiss (1750-1839) and others at what is now Summit Hill in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. The collection consists of documents relating to land ownership and governance of Lehigh Coal Mine Company.

The Mount Carbon Railroad Company was incorporated in Pennsylvania on April 20, 1829, for the purpose of building a railroad from the Schuylkill Canal at Mount Carbon up Norwegian Creek to the forks and thence to Wadesville on the East Branch and Mount Laffee on the West Branch. The collection consist of thirteen laborers receipts issued for the construction of the railroad in 1829 and 1830 by William R. Hopkins, superintendent.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Pennsylvania was already a leader in the coal, iron, steel, railroad, and petroleum industries. As the manufacturing industries grew in the cities, so did the small businesses of craftsman and artisans that populated the surrounding areas selling their goods. These merchants played an important role in trade, community relationships, and the economy.  This is an artificial collection of account books, cash ledgers, and receipt books of nineteenth-century merchants of various industries in Pennsylvania. Minimal correspondence is included as well as a poem.  Mineral, iron and leather industries are represented as well as organ building which includes two treatises written in German.  

Several generations of the Penn family were proprietors of the British colony of Pennsylvania. It was given to William Penn (1644-1718) in 1681 by Charles II of England in repayment of a debt owed to his father, Sir Admiral William Penn (1621-1670). Under Penn's directive, Pennsylvania was settled by Quakers escaping religious torment in England and other European nations. Three generations of Penn descendants held proprietorship of the colony until the American Revolution, when the family was stripped of all but its privately held shares of land. "Book A" is a record of deeds granted between April 24, 1784, and March 22, 1793, by members of the Penn family to various purchasers of those proprietary lands retained by the family after the American Revolution, located between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania Power & Light traces its origins to the various water and gas light companies that began operating in the eastern part of the state during the mid-nineteenth century. The records of the Pennsylvania Power & Light Company predecessor and subsidiary companies document the history of the gas and electric utility industry in eastern Pennsylvania in the years between 1853 and 1957. The collection includes both the administrative and operating records of more than 1100 companies that merged to form the PP&L system.

Pennsylvania Power & Light Company formed in 1920 through the consolidation of eight electric utilities companies serving central and eastern Pennsylvania. The collection primarily includes corporate papers documenting the company’s acquisition of various competing electric companies in the early-to-mid twentieth century by way of franchise building, market research and corporate communications, hydroelectric development through studies and surveys on Pennsylvania’s waterways, and material documenting the company’s various power plants in central eastern Pennsylvania. Financial and accounting records of the Pennsylvania Water & Power Company, which PP&L acquired in 1955, are also included.

The Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts was a membership organization of Philadelphia's political, mercantile, and manufacturing elite to promote the causes of domestic manufacturers, particularly textiles. The Pennsylvania Manufacturing Society accounts include a ledger of both the general and special accounts of the manufacturing fund. The bulk of the transactions are from the period of active operations, with the settlement of accounts taking place between 1790 and 1801.

The Wyomissing Development Company was a housing development firm for the employees of a manufacturer of knitting machinery, the Textile Machine Works. Both companies were incorporated by Henry Janssen (1866-1948) and Ferdinand Thun (1866-1948). The collection contains two minute books which document the organization of the Wyomissing Development Company, the acquisition of land for the company town and other public facilities including stores, parks, playgrounds, schools, and hospitals.